“The Fiscal Times” is recirculating “Consumer Reports’” annual review of supermarkets, which placed Wegmans at the very top and Walmart Supercenters just one place above the very bottom. The review was conducted in 2012 with 24,000 customer surveys and looked at issues such as price, cleanliness, customer service and food quality. Though Walmart beat out every other supermarket chain but one for last place, it still got high marks from customers for low prices. Reminds me of the joke where a restaurant customer says, “The food wasn’t very good, but they give you a lot of it!”
Tops didn’t fare very well, either, coming in sixth from the bottom. Tiny Trader Joe’s, which operates stores about one-tenth the size of Wegmans or Walmart, also came out a winner for its customer service, food quality and layout, coming in second behind Wegmans.

Here at the Paragraph Factory, we get your typical array of employee benefits – 401(k), medical, dental, eye – that multitudes of full-time workers everywhere enjoy. And we get a few that some may not, like tuition reimbursement. But then there are some employers that go well beyond the norm. Like Dixon Schwabl and its slide and ice cream socials (both of which I think get mentioned in every story about the ad firm). Or now there’s Foundation Financial Group. The Atlanta financial services company this summer sent Joseph D. Craigmile IV, a section manager at its Rochester center, along with his wife and their infant son, to Poland on a paid vacation. According to Foundation Financial, each quarter gives out its Brosier Award Diamond Award to an employee “for outstanding service and for going beyond the call of duty while maintaining a positive attitude.” Fortune magazine earlier this year put out its 2012 list of the best places for which to work, based on such criteria as pay, paid health care, and percentage of workers who regularly work from home. Among the noteworthy “unusual perks” Fortune found were batches of coupons Wegmans Food Markets Inc. gave its workers at Christmas; free hotel rooms for Four Seasons workers; and the free lunches and regular summer BBQs at FactSet Research. All of which got me thinking, does your workplace do anything particular interesting or beyond the norm in terms of employee benefits? Let me know. mdaneman@gannett.com

Not since Sept. 11, 2001, have I seen so many colleagues rush to the phone to contact loved ones. But this time, thankfully, it was with good news: Trader Joe’s is coming to Rochester (Pittsford Plaza to be more precise.) I confess I did the same, leaving phone messages with my husband and sister even before calling Wilmorite to get more details on their announcement.

What? All this hoopla over a grocery store so small that you could fit nine or 10 of them into a single Wegmans? The store’s cachet is legendary. Even though the closest one is in another state, there are passionate Trader Joe’s fans in Rochester. It’s nearly impossible to walk the Rochester Public Market without seeing people carrying Trader Joe’s bags. And should you be carrying one of those bags, others will stop you and ask you where you got it — “Is there a store that’s opened in the area?” they’ll ask.

As soon as word got out in this office, colleagues began drifting over to me, telling me stories of how they squeeze trips to Trader Joe’s into their vacations travel plans. My sister, I learned today, once posed for a photo in front of a then-empty grocery store in Spencerport while holding two Trader Joe’s bags. She then emailed the picture to the company with her plea to locate here.

Some of the attraction might be the mostly all-natural products the stores carry. Price points are generally lower compared to similar products at other stores. But some products are unique to TJ, such as their chocolate-covered soy nuts. I have my freezer stocked with their nuts, which they typically offer more of and at lower prices than other grocery stores.

Despite the difference in size, this store has a lot in common with Wegmans. They both find great products and put them on the shelves under their store labels. They are generous with food samples. Their employees are trained to be friendly and helpful. They wear uniforms (Hawaiian shirts in the case of TJs.) But then Trader Joe’s differentiates itself by ringing a bell every time an employee answers a customer’s question. Clearly that bell will resonate in this town.

As I was covering President Barack Obama’s speech in Buffalo, a Washington, D.C.-based reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper in that area told me he “loves Wegmans.” We were discussing Wegmans because the salad bars are made by Industrial Support Inc. in Buffalo, a company where Obama spoke. The reporter did not know the chain, which has expanded into his area of northern Virginina and D.C., was based in Rochester. That will probably change, and Rochester will be known for yet another Kodak-type multistate company.

“The Office” also showed a Wegmans reusable bag on its May 13 show. The show is based in a Pennsylvania area which now has Wegmans stores.

Wegmans enjoyed its Hollywood moments.

“One of the nicest surprises we’ve ever had! We hope his mom stays put in central New York,” said Jo Natale, Wegmans spokeswoman.

It’s been just about a decade since I was the restaurant critic here at the Democrat and Chronicle. I didn’t mind giving up the weekly scramble for a sitter to watch our twin babies and pre-schooler so that my most frequent companion, my husband, could join me for a night of sampling the cuisine and service at a local eatery. “That must be the best job in the world!” people would say when my companion would “out” my job among friends and acquaintances. “Yes,” I’d typically say. “…when the food is good.” My husband loved the admiration that came with his role as companion of the restaurant critic and played it up for all it was worth. I tried to keep things quiet because you can’t be a good food critic if you’re not anonymous and, well, because I’m just not that outgoing. While I was fully aware of what a good gig the job was, I also had an appreciation for just how much real work being a critic can be. You can’t always order just what you want — you have to think of informing readers first and you have to (within reason) let your companions order what they want if you want them to be available the next time you need someone to sit in front of the food you’re going to sample. Also, you just can’t relax if you’re ticking off a mental check list of all the things you need to take in and evaluate before you leave restaurant. Yeah, I know. All you’re hearing is “Blah, blah, blah…FREE FOOD.” But I do miss the feeling of being on the cutting edge of cuisine in Rochester, learning about food trends and explaining them to readers who might be less familiar with food. So I got a huge kick this week out of visiting with six chefs at Wegmans as they were developing recipes for the holiday issue of Menumagazine. This was for the series we’re doing, “Where We Work,” about really cool places to work. I got to meet the face on the Wegmans trucks, the perky nutritionist on the Wegmans website videos and the wise-cracking chef who heads the cooking school. Oh, and some young lady named Colleen was there, too. The chefs each rolled out the dishes they were making and explained what they had tried and how these dishes might fit into the various categories of both the magazine and the stores. Then they handed out samples to get feedback from the peers and bosses. I got to try some, too. As I dug into sirloin roast au poivre and sweet potato gratin, I thought “Now this IS a very cool job.” Mine, that is.

Business writers, as I am, often patronize the businesses they write about. They write about gas prices and then, on the way home, pump gas, thus encountering the prices they met in their stories just a short time before. This doesn’t happen to celebrity reporters; they rarely write about Kate Hudson in the morning and run into her in the afternoon.

Nowhere is this confluence of topic and reality more evident than at Wegmans. The company has a terrifically responsive (and good-humored) PR department and rarely does a week go by that I don’t have some kind of Wegmans item to turn into a news story. Then, invariably, on my way home, I steer into a Wegmans to acquire the food to slake the hunger that writing about Wegmans has engendered.

My Wegmans of necessity is the East Avenue store, famous for its smallness and the diversity of its clientele. The human condition is on vivid display there. The crowds can be off-putting, but what amazes me about food shoppers in that part of the city is how few of them abandon Wegmans for either the nearby Tops or Price Rite. You’d think that those stores would enjoy a considerable runoff of Wegmans shoppers tired of the elbow-to-elbow aisles and shopping-aisle crackups. Some no doubt make the switch. But more just stick with the store they know, cart mishaps notwithstanding. The power of the brand. It’s a concept – until I go shopping on the way home. Then it comes alive.

Diana Louise Carter was born at Rochester General Hospital the same year it opened and reared in Bristol, Ontario County. After college and grad school, her first reporting job was on a small newspaper in Western Massachusetts. She returned to Rochester in late 1987 to work for the Democrat and Chronicle. Carter covers agriculture and banking. She lives in the Upper Monroe neighborhood of Rochester with her husband and three children.

Matthew Daneman is a business reporter with the Democrat and Chronicle, covering imaging, optics, printing, telecommunications, manufacturing and a host of other topics. He lives in Rochester with his wife, Sheila. If he could have authentic western N.Y. chicken wings morning, noon and night, he would.

Tom Tobin has 30 years experience with Gannett newspapers as an editor and reporter. He lives in Rochester and has two children: Lia, 16, and Melissa, 11.